


Don't Play Koi

by Kalikuks



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Animal Transformation, Fluff and Humor, Gift Fic, High Fantasy, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Hunter Jesse McCree, M/M, Summoner Hanzo, Target Practice Secret Santa 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:20:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21865879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kalikuks/pseuds/Kalikuks
Summary: Jesse looks between the letter and the orb and the agitated koi fish before he can’t help but snort. He tosses the letter down onto the nearest surface and walks up to the orb of water hovering in the centre of the room. The koi fish—Hanzo, does not look pleased in the slightest.-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --Secret Santa gift for sksninja! Happy Holidays!
Relationships: Jesse McCree/Hanzo Shimada
Comments: 9
Kudos: 191





	Don't Play Koi

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sksNinja](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sksNinja/gifts).



> This is a gift for sksninja on the Target Practice Discord!  
> The prompt given was "Hanzo is turned into a seadragon. Not a merman. Like an actual seahorse or beta fish or some silly, pretty, thing."  
> I hope you don't mind I took a fantasy spin to this!  
> Shout out to my best friend Olivia for helping me think of a title for this thing!

Jesse makes it to the tower right before sunset. He’d just come back this way from a hunt, the saddlebags of his horse Deadeye full of pieces of the monsters he’s slain, mostly whatever those who had placed the bounties on said monsters didn’t want. Jesse knows a lot of the magic practising folk though, and the pieces one alchemist may not want may be part of a spell and a wizard may have need of it.

Hanzo, while neither exactly a wizard or alchemist but a sort of magic practitioner himself, is someone Jesse has become recently acquainted with through Genji. He’d introduced Jesse to his brother right after a bad run-in with a cockatrice, and Hanzo had helped Jesse survive having accidentally looked at the creature. Jesse made a sort of an agreement with Hanzo after that, that he would sell him any bits of creatures that Jesse’s clients passed over. It's no skin off of Jesse’s back to ensure such a helpful ally gets items that may help Jesse in the future.

He’ll still deny up and down, in Genji’s presence at least, that he’s looking for all the excuses to visit Hanzo that he can.

Jesse trots his horse through the gate and onto the grounds proper of Hanzo’s tower home. He swings down off of Deadeye and leads him over to the stables on the property to let him drink and rest a little after such a long journey. Jesse collects the saddlebags and hefts them over his shoulder. He has to ruffle through one as he approaches the entrance into Hanzo’s tower.

There are two massive dragon carvings that run down the sides of the tower before their fronts come to flank either side of the door. Their massive forms block the door from even being accessed. Jesse pulls out the sake that he stopped to buy during the journey before he moved on to head Hanzo’s way. One of the dragon carving’s maw is open, and Jesse places the sake on the flattened tongue of the creature.

Immediately the scales of the beast glow bright blue and the maw snaps shut around the offering, the carved dragon guardians coming to life to back off and allow Jesse passage. Hanzo is reclusive at best, and only those privy to his preferences know of this secret way to enter the man’s abode. Jesse tips his hat to both dragons as he moves past them to knock on the door. Hanzo’s given him express permission to enter as he pleases, but that don’t mean Jesse will throw his manners out the window.

When Hanzo doesn’t answer right away and with the dragons staring him down, Jesse does open the door and head inside.

“Hanzo? It’s Jesse.” Jesse sets his saddlebags down and sweeps his hat off of his head and presses it over his heart, “I brought you some monster bits, thought you’d wanna look at them in case ya need any?”

The tower remains eerily silent. It starts to unnerve Jesse. Hanzo should have appeared by now. He puts his hat back on and shuffles his saddlebags out of the entryway in case someone else should enter from outside the tower. Jesse slowly approaches the staircase heading up when Hanzo does not appear from the only other room connected to the foyer where the man keeps most of his travel gear.

“Hanzo? I’m comin’ up!” Jesse calls, starts to take the stairs, “You better be okay or else Genj’ll kill ya twice over.” Jesse pauses on the flight of stairs between the kitchen area and Hanzo’s library, knowing the lab where Hanzo is likely to be is still a few flights up and huffs under his breath, “I’m thinkin’ on it myself, t’be fair. How many damn stairs didja need?”

Jesse makes it to the lab floor, finds the door ajar and pushes through. Everything looks to be in order, the only thing _not_ in order is the orb of water in the centre of the room that was definitely not there last time Jesse was here. In the middle of the orb, a very agitated black and white koi swims in circles. Hanzo’s storm elementals, lightning condensed in the form of two dragon-like beings, lift their heads from where they are curled up together on a chair in the corner.

“Y’all wouldn’t know where Hanzo is?” Jesse asks them as he steps into the room.

Both beings blink at him before one uncurls and leaps across the room, landing on the desk pressed against the opposite wall in the blink of an eye. It grasps a folded letter in its mouth before the creature leaps at Jesse. He braces himself for the tickle of the energy coming off of the elemental being as it wraps itself around his neck and lazes across his shoulders. It deposits the paper into Jesse’s hand when he reaches for it.

_Dear visitor of Hanzo,_

_As you can see, my brother got himself into a bit of a situation. Dumbass turned himself into a Koi. I think he was messing around with some sort of transformation spell and fucked it up royally. I’ve gone to go get someone who can hopefully turn him back, but until then I’ve placed him in the Shame Orb so he’ll at least survive long enough as a fish for me to return. If you can reverse what he’s done, great! But I call first dibs on calling him a Dumbass._

_Regards, Genji_

Jesse looks between the letter and the orb and the agitated koi fish before he can’t help but snort. He tosses the letter down onto the nearest surface and walks up to the orb of water hovering in the centre of the room. The koi fish—Hanzo, does not look pleased in the slightest. It is to be expected when you’re suddenly a fish, but Jesse still can’t help but find the situation to be hilarious.

“Oh, Hanzo,” Jesse shakes his head, tries to keep himself from laughing too much at the poor man’s situation, “You went an’ done it, huh?”

Hanzo of course at this moment is a fish and cannot reply to Jesse, but he’s certain the agitated increase of his swimming laps in the water orb means he’s heard Jesse loud and clear and does not appreciate any comments or critique at the moment. Jesse scratches through his beard as he looks about the lab space. Well, he’s always loved a challenge, and he’s got some practice dispelling curses and spells under his belt.

Turning a fish back into a human should be easy in comparison to some of the things Jesse’s done for his bounties. He just hopes Hanzo doesn’t mind him setting up shop in his home for a little bit. Potions take a while to distill and brew after all, and the antidote for Hanzo’s predicament will be much of the same. Maybe Genji will return with someone who can dispel the magic on Hanzo before Jesse even cooks something up.

Until then, Jesse’s gonna try.

It doesn’t take long for Jesse to figure out what Hanzo was trying to do after he’s settled in and put his stuff away for the duration of his hopefully short stay. He’s known Hanzo’s been having trouble with bandits causing trouble in the forest around his tower, and he’d been trying to make a polymorph potion to turn into something more intimidating than a magically inclined hermit in a tower. Now he’s an angry fish in an orb _inside_ a tower, and Jesse’s just thankful the bandits had left him alone and not cleaned Hanzo out of all his things. They probably don’t know Hanzo’s currently a decorative fish, which is for the best.

Usually, potion antidotes include the exact same things that went _into_ the potion, plus a few other bits that cancel out the effect of the brew. Hanzo’s notes make gathering the potion ingredients easy, and luckily Jesse always carries a few of the plants that lend to dispelling magic with him. Handy to have for hunting certain monsters, that’s for sure.

Hanzo watches Jesse from inside the orb as he works over the next few days. Jesse talks as he smashes up and mixes the ingredients, telling Hanzo about his worst jobs and his best jobs. Jesse also makes food when he remembers to, bringing the lunches and dinners up into the lab and sharing some with Hanzo. He’s pretty sure Hanzo must be starving in that orb, and judging by the way Hanzo goes crazy swimming around to catch the bits of food Jesse gives him it’s probably been a while since he’s had a proper meal. Poor thing, who knows how long he’s been in this state.

The potion antidote takes three days to finish.

Jesse has the foresight to let the brew cool before he pulls some of the strange brackish looking liquid out with an eyedropper. And to cork the bottle and set it aside before he approaches the orb. Often these kinds of antidotes can work almost instantly, and Jesse would rather not break the glass bottle in case Hanzo’s return to his human form is violent.

Jesse’s correct in that assumption too, for as soon as he feeds the koi version of Hanzo some of the liquid in the eyedropper the orb of water suddenly bursts as Hanzo reverts to his human form. Water flies everywhere and Jesse dives forward to catch Hanzo in his arms, falling forward with a very nude and very damp Hanzo cradled close to his chest.

There’s a small moment where both of them are too stunned to say a word, staring wide-eyed at each other sprawled out on the floor of Hanzo’s lab. It is Hanzo who breaks the moment, coughing awkwardly and Jesse backs off, keeping his eyes from travelling anywhere but Hanzo’s very handsome face. Jesse grabs his coat from where he tossed it over a chair and offers it to Hanzo, who wraps himself up in it immediately.

“I would ask you to speak of this to no one,” Hanzo starts, gathering his long dark hair over a shoulder to begin to wring it out, “but considering it was my brother who first discovered me, I fear all the realms know of this incident by now.”

“Yeah, that’s a fair assumption.” Jesse just sits back and watches as Hanzo tries to tidy himself up, “How long you been like that anyway?”

“A week.” Hanzo sighs, “I was lucky that Genji did come across me, though. In truth, if he hadn’t I might still be a fish dead on the floor.”

Jesse doesn’t want to tell Hanzo that if he “ _died”_ in the form of the koi he would have turned back into a human faster. Genji had no doubt put Hanzo in that orb to prolong that transformation and make an even bigger fool of his brother. Hanzo will no doubt figure it out on his own, Jesse just does not want to be present when the brothers next meet when that tidbit of information gets discovered. At least the antidote was a more dignified way for Hanzo to be turned back.

“Real lucky,” Jesse replies instead.

He suddenly doesn't know what to do with himself, and Hanzo seems to be busying himself with tidying himself and his lab up. Jesse awkwardly stands and considering Hanzo still has his coat to cover himself he moves to at least help mop up the water all over the place. Hanzo disappears to put on some actual clothes, and brings back Jesse his coat once he returns.

As he hands the garment back to Jesse, Hanzo mutters a spell and waves his hand over it. Any dampness that remained in the fabric from Hanzo using it to cover himself is gone by the time Jesse shrugs back into his coat.

“Thank ya kindly.”

“It was the least I could do for your help,” Hanzo replies. He seems to think something over, “Would you be amiable to sharing a dinner together? I would like to discuss your knowledge of antidotes and the like since you seem so well versed. I never pegged you for an alchemist, McCree.”

“I jus’ know my way around dispelling magic an’ breakin’ curses.” Jesse shrugs, sending Hanzo a wink, “But I’ll tell you my trade secrets in exchange for that dinner.” Jesse looks the handsome summoner over, and takes a stab at trying his luck, “An’ if you’re up for it, maybe a date~?”

Hanzo gives a considering hum as he looks Jesse up and down. Jesse just grins and wiggles his eyebrows, earning the slightest twitch of a smile from Hanzo. He turns and motions for Jesse to follow him down the stairs to the kitchen and dining area of his tower.

“We can consider the dinner to be a date if you wish.”

Jesse can’t help but grin and follows Hanzo down the stairs.  
  
“Darlin’, that would suit me jus’ fine."

**Author's Note:**

> If you wanna chat at me about McHanzo or any other of the pairings I ship, catch me on my fic tumblr [Angstgremlin](http://angstgremlin.tumblr.com) or you can now find me at my Twitter [Angstgremlin](https://twitter.com/Angstgremlin)


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